


close your eyes (and count to ten)

by oharlem



Category: James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, James' Past, M/M, bit of a bond character study, parallels come full circle in james' life, with 00Q thrown in at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-08
Updated: 2013-01-08
Packaged: 2017-11-24 03:14:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/629738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oharlem/pseuds/oharlem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘Whenever it gets too much, this life, whenever you feel as if you can handle no more, close your eyes. I want you to close your eyes and count from ten and with each number you speak, go back in time. I want you to go back to the memories of your past; the painful ones, the pleasant ones, the partial ones. Go there and be happy, go there and be safe.’</p>
            </blockquote>





	close your eyes (and count to ten)

**Author's Note:**

> James thinks back on his past and Q helps him imagine a slightly better future.

James Bond has come to realise that his name is synonymous with destruction, with death, with desire. Wherever danger walks, he will diligently follow in its footsteps, leaving a blazing inferno and a sky that falls to pieces in his wake. He cannot live without it, the adrenaline, the thrill of the chase and the satisfaction of the capture. After all, it is the only thing he has left, the sense of being alive. But he was not always this way. 

No, before he was 007, before he was Bond, even before James, he was Jim and Jimmy-Boy and My Darling. Before he was an agent, he was just a man in the military, and before that he was a student in the academy and a teenager, a preteen; before he was everything that he is now, James was a child.

(close your eyes and count to ten)

There is an old trick he learned from M, one that he knew she practiced even on her deathbed. ‘Whenever it gets too much, this life, whenever you feel as if you can handle no more, close your eyes. I want you to close your eyes and count from ten and with each number you speak, go back in time. I want you to go back to the memories of your past; the painful ones, the pleasant ones, the partial ones. Go there and be happy, go there and be safe.’

And so he does. Each day when his world of murder and mayhem and the metallic taste of blood on his lips becomes too much to bear, he closes his eyes. He closes his eyes and counts from ten, back to a time before he was another notch on the wall; back to a time when his only aspiration was to change the world. In a way, James thinks, he succeeded.

(lost in your past memories again)

(and, oh, how you wish to return to those days)

10…9…8…7…  
He is at university, at a military school, training to be in the forces; his early dream still blazing, though not as bright, in his mind’s eye. Because if he cannot save the world, he might as well try to save the United Kingdom. He is at a pub with his friends, a life of early alcoholism making its self known in light of his parents’ death. They laugh and drink and talk about Queen and Country. All of them believe they will be at the top, no one suspects that raucous James Bond will be the only man left standing at the end of the century.

(when everyone was simple)

…5…4…3…

He is in middle school, now, caught on that precipice of childhood and puberty. James remembers all of the thoughts that would swim through his head, all of the worries and jokes and impressions he thought had to be made. He remembers wondering if it was normal to fancy each gender equally. His thirteen year old self teeters on asking that fit bloke Johnny Mahanoy on a date and speculating whether or not Kate Hallory would kiss him. James remembers when his only cares were his marks, his peers, and his elders. In some ways, this hasn’t changed.

(and everything was great) 

…2…1…

Suddenly, he is five again, lying in his mother’s arms in his childhood home. James remembers this night, if only vaguely. He had had a nightmare and Mummy found him crying in the kitchen and she scooped him into her arms and onto the rocking chair by the fire. She rocked him and sang to him and shushed him back to sleep. James remembers her crying even though he was the one who had the terrible dreams. And, even though he was five and scared and had no idea for what lay ahead in his hard years to come, he curled into his mother and spoke softly.

‘Hush, Mummy, it’ll be alright. It’s okay. I’m here, Mummy. You’re safe. We’re safe. Hush, Mummy. Hush, now…’

(but it’s all gone now, a whisper in the wind)

(nothing left but heartache, nothing left but pain)

 

…0…

James is back to himself and there is a chill to his palms and a light sweat on his forehead. And he is shaking, but he is not crying, because he is James bond and James Bond simply does not cry. He sits there, at a desk he barely remembers walking to, in a chair that doesn’t belong to him, and he has an empty bottle of whiskey to one side and a full one to his right. Yet, he doesn’t drink, not so soon, not after the memories.

(so you moved on, living day by day)

Because, for all their pain and all their heartache, they keep him moving forward, looking back, and taking risks. In the times when he has no mission and there is no one for him to kill, James finds his adrenaline in his past, he finds his rush in the dull ache of a hollow chest.

There is one thing he cannot let go of, not even as he marches off to the guillotine, day in and day out. All the running and the jumping and the hiding and the stealing and the killing, he does it because he has to, it is all he knows how to do in this life any more. Because if he’s not shooting, then he’s being shot at and, if there is one thing that 007, that James Bond, is scared of, it is death.

(and when you’re feeling lonely with your smiles and your booze)

He is shaking again, shivering in his expensive suit and heavy coat. But he is not crying because he is James Bond and he simply does not cry. He heaves and chokes and wretches, the broken sounds of a man with no more tears left to shed. And so, with a tight smile, he uncaps the bottle and pours himself a glass, toasting his pallid reflection that stares blankly back.

(a forgotten reverie like a fading bruise)

One, to take off the edge.  
Two, to ease the pain.  
Three, to help him remember.  
Four, to help him forget.

As he feels himself slipping into the unconscious bliss of alcohol, James catches sight of a photograph in his whiskey-haze. It is a picture of a boy with dark, messy curls and wide eyes hidden behind black-rimmed glasses. There are others standing side-by-side, two older men, the brothers, James presumes, but it is the youngest that holds his attention.

The youngest with his innocence and youth and beauty, all of which James lost a long time ago when he became Bond, and even more so when he was stripped of his name and assigned a number instead. Though, for all the boy’s appearance, it is his eyes that speak to James, those bespectacled, glossy eyes. They are grey and green and blue all at once, but it is not the colour, as alluring as it is, that stops him. 

He sees his face reflected in the eyes of the boy in the photograph, his own tired eyes turning down around the edges. How could one so young have eyes so deep? How could someone, who should be protected from the world and all of its horrid reality, have the expression of a man who has fought in a thousand wars?

(close your eyes and count to ten)

James cannot hold his own eyes open for much longer and, as he dozes, he dreams, a part of his childhood that has never escaped him. He counts, this time to ten and with each passing digit, he thinks ahead, to a future he might have.

1…2…3...4…

He is speaking to a young man in hushed tones, one he recognizes as the boy in the photograph. They are talking so intimately, their voices in each other’s ears, yet they are thousands of miles apart. James receives directions through an earpiece and he does not question a thing, he does not question the man’s loyalty, he does not question the man’s authority, because he knows that there are no other hands he’d rather have holding his life.

…5…6…7…8…  
They are talking again, except, this time, they are face to face, side by side. They laugh, the bittersweet music of men resigned to their fate, and they share the melancholy together. The couch is filled with Chinese takeaway and mission files and James finds that it is almost domestic, that, in its own twisted way, it was pleasant.

…9…10…

He feels his bare skin on another human’s but he doesn’t tense. Somehow, he knows who the arms against his chest belong to and he knows the body that he is holding on to for dear life. It is the middle of the night, years down the road, and James has a chill in his hands and a sweat on his forehead; a nightmare, like all of the other ones before. But instead of not-crying because he is James Bond and James Bond simply does-not-cry, he is suddenly being held. He feels warm and safe as lean arms wind around his waist and a head of dark, messy curls press under his nose and the man is there, whispering calming words.

‘Hush, James. It was only a dream. It’s alright. You’re safe. We’re safe. Hush, James. Go back to sleep. Hush, now…’

(close your weary eyes, my friend)

Q finds Bond passed out on his desk, two empty whiskey bottles and a shot glass littered around the unconscious body. Tentatively, he edges into the room and finds himself staring at the man before him. The man who could break his neck in less than two seconds, the man whose past was an unspoken taboo, the man who could fool almost everyone with his façade. Almost everyone. 

The Quartermaster throws the bottles in the bin and sets the glass on a different counter. He wipes away the light sheen of sweat on James’ face and folds his parka as a pillow for the man. Q leaves the lights on low and leaves his office, headed for the break room for a fresh cup of tea, a water bottle, and some aspirin for the inevitable headache to come. As he exits, Q presses a chaste kiss to James’ forehead and whispers words of which he knows not the importance.

‘Sweet dreams, Bond.’

(close your eyes and count to ten  
lost in your past memories again  
and, oh, how you wish to return to those days  
when everyone was simple  
and everything was great  
but it’s all gone now, a whisper in the wind  
nothing left but heartache  
nothing left but pain  
so you moved on, living day by day  
and you’re feeling lonely with your smiles and your booze  
a forgotten reverie like a fading bruise  
close your eyes and count to ten  
close your weary eyes, my friend.)

**Author's Note:**

> So, I wrote a thing. I actually should have been writing a lot of other things (like 'the trail ends here') BUT this idea simply would not leave me alone. Unbeta'd at the moment.
> 
> -Misfit


End file.
